UNU-MERIT Working Papers Series

Types of Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth

Erik Stam & André van Stel #2009-049

In this paper, we empirically investigate the effect of entrepreneurship on economic growth at the country level. We use data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, which provides comparative data on entrepreneurship from a wide range of countries. An important element of this paper is that we compare the effects of entrepreneurial activity on economic growth in high income, transition and low income countries. This dataset also enables us to make a distinction between the effects of entrepreneurship in general and growth-oriented entrepreneurship in particular. We present empirical tests of the impact of entrepreneurial activity on GDP growth over a four year period for a sample of 36 countries. Our empirical analyses suggest that entrepreneurship does not have an effect on economic growth in low income countries, in contrast to transition and high income countries where especially growth-oriented entrepreneurship seems to contribute strongly to macroeconomic growth.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, growth-oriented entrepreneurship, economic growth

JEL classification: L16, L26, M13, O11, O40, O57

UNU-MERIT Working Papers ISSN 1871-9872

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